2008: One Earth: Globalism & Animal Law

Please join us this fall as the top minds in animal law from around the world meet to explore cutting-edge issues in the field of animal law and educate today and tomorrow’s lawyers about the legal challenges and opportunities in this growing area of specialization.

This year’s conference explores animal law from diverse international perspectives. In addition to panels on animals in legal systems abroad, we will host speakers on specific issues of global interest, including religion, oceans and the military. Panels will also cover domestic legislation, criminal law”¦ and more!

The conference will host dozens of prominent speakers, including: Dr. Paul Waldau, Director, Center for Public Policy and Animals at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University; Steven Wise, Author, and Founder/Director of the Center for Expansion of Fundamental Rights; Joyce Tischler, Founder and General Counsel of the Animal Legal Defense Fund; David Favre, Professor of Law, Michigan State University; Peter Sankoff, Professor of Law, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Amanda Whitfort, Professor of Law, University of Hong Kong; Paul Littlefair, Senior Manager, International Programmes, RSPCA; Rebecca Huss, Professor of Law, Valparaiso University School of Law and court-appointed guardian/special master for the pit bull terriers in the Michael Vick dog-fighting case; Dr. Paul Locke, Director, Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health; Scott Heiser, Director, Criminal Justice Program, Animal Legal Defense Fund.

Don’t miss out on the longest running national animal law conference in the world!

2008 Animal Law Conference Speaker Biographies

Sarah Baeckler

Sarah Baeckler is a primatologist and chimpanzee advocate whose research focused on chimpanzee communication and cultures of captive management. She has degrees in primatology and anthropology, as well as a juris doctor from Lewis and Clark Law School’s Animal Law program. After several years of working with captive chimpanzees in zoos and sanctuaries, Sarah worked undercover at a Hollywood animal training compound. For more than a year, she witnessed and reported on institutionalized abuse of chimpanzees by the trainers. She spent five years as the administrator of the Chimpanzee Collaboratory, a joint effort of several nonprofits, including Animal Legal Defense Fund, The Jane Goodall Institute, and Save the Chimps. At the Collaboratory, Sarah worked on a campaign to end the use of great apes in entertainment, which included both public education and legal initiatives. Inspired by the lawsuit that resulted in the rescue of the chimpanzees she met while undercover, she expanded her focus by combining her scientific and hands-on care experience with legal training to improve her advocacy on behalf of chimpanzees. As Executive Director of CSNW, Sarah focuses her efforts on advocacy and fundraising.

Gene Baur

Gene Baur grew up in Hollywood, California and worked in television, film and commercials, including some for McDonald’s and other fast food restaurants. Today, he campaigns to raise awareness about the negative consequences of industrialized factory farming and our cheap food system. He lives in rural New York state and is the co-founder and president of Farm Sanctuary, America’s leading farm animal protection organization. Gene holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from California State University Northridge and a master’s degree in agricultural economics from Cornell University.

After volunteering and working with various environmental and human rights causes, Gene turned his attention to animal agriculture. He has conducted hundreds of visits to farms, stockyards, and slaughterhouses to document conditions, and his pictures and videotape, exposing factory farming cruelty, have been aired nationally and internationally, educating millions. He has testified in court and before local, state and federal legislative bodies, and has initiated groundbreaking legal enforcement and legislative action to raise awareness and prevent factory farming abuses. He played a significant role in passing the first U.S. laws to prohibit cruel farming systems ”“ including the Florida ban on gestation crates, the Arizona ban on veal and gestation crates, and the California and Chicago bans on foie gras. His efforts have been covered by leading news organizations, including the New York Times, The Larry King Show, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, National Public Radio, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN. His book, entitled Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds about Animals and Food, was published by Simon and Schuster in March, 2008.

Peter Brandt

Peter A. Brandt is the Senior Attorney for Farm Animal Litigation with the Humane Society of the United States’ Animal Protection Litigation (APL) section. APL conducts precedent-setting legal campaigns on behalf of animals in state and federal courts around the country. With a staff of 12 full-time lawyers and more than 30 active cases, APL is the largest Animal Protection Litigation program in the country. Peter has been involved in animal protection issues for over a decade, and currently oversees the entire farm animal litigation docket for The HSUS. He received his J.D. from Lewis & Clark Law School and he holds a B.A. from Whitman College.

Claire Davis

Ms. Davis is an attorney with the Seattle office of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich and Rosati. Her primary area of practice is securities litigation, and she also provides pro bono legal services in the area of animal law. Ms. Davis co-chairs a public education campaign called “KCACC Exposed,” which is dedicated to correcting inhumane conditions that exist at the animal shelters run by King County Animal Care and Control (KCACC) in King County, WA. Ms. Davis also served on the KCACC Citizens’ Advisory Committee, and is a stakeholder member of a King County work group charged with developing a strategic plan for improving the King County sheltering system. Before moving to the Seattle area, Ms. Davis served as the animal law advisor for Best Friends Animal Society, the largest companion animal sanctuary in the United States and an outspoken advocate for creating a No Kill nation. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Ms. Davis participated in animal rescue efforts in Louisiana on behalf of Alley Cat Allies, a national feral cat advocacy group. Ms. Davis is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and The George Washington University. Before attending law school, she worked as a newspaper reporter for several years.

David Favre

A professor of law, now at Michigan State University, since 1976 Professor Favre has written several articles and books dealing with animal issues including such topics as animal cruelty, wildlife law, the use of animals for scientific research, and international control of animal trade. His books include Animal Law and Dog Behavior, Animal Law: Welfare, Interest, and Rights, and International Trade in Endangered Species. He also has presented to international audiences on these topics. He was a national officer of the Animal Legal Defense Fund for 22 years. Presently he is the Legislative Chair of the ABA Committee on Animal Law. He created and is editor-in-chief of the largest animal legal web resource, www.animallaw.info.

He served as interim dean of the Law College from 1993 to 1996 and from 1999 to 2000. He teaches Property, International Environmental Law, Wildlife Law, and Animal Law.

Robert Fennessy

Attorney Robert Fennessy’s animal law career has spanned nearly a quarter of a century. He worked for the MSPCA Law Enforcement Department as an animal abuse investigator, prosecutor, and Deputy Director. In 2002, Mr. Fennessy was admitted to practice law in Massachusetts, and shortly thereafter opened a law practice in Walpole, MA with a satellite office in Plainville, MA. It was only logical that animal law cases would follow him into his new profession.

Attorney Fennessy has been retained as in-house counsel to a number of small humane societies in Massachusetts, and has litigated many cases of animal injuries and deaths in the Massachusetts Court system. In 2007, he was honored in Massachusetts as the “Up and Coming Lawyer of the Year” for his work in Animal Rights Law. Admitted as a member of the Bar of the highest Courts in Massachusetts, Attorney Fennessy has also been admitted to practice before the United States District Courts, and the United States Supreme Court. He is routinely quoted in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, and in the Boston area media on issues relating to Animal Law and Rights.

A graduate of Northeastern University (B.S.), Boston University (M. Ed.), and the Southern New England School of Law (J.D.), Attorney Fennessy now teaches Animal Law and Rights and Municipal Law and Government at the Southern New England School of Law, where he is an adjunct professor of law. He concentrates his law practice in the areas of Animal Law, Municipal Law, Employment Law, and Family Law, yet he contends that it is the animal law cases that are often the most difficult and time-consuming to work on, the most costly in net gain, yet can be the most satisfying to litigate.

A well known “community advocate” in his hometown of Plainville, MA, Attorney Fennessy provides pro-bono legal representation to the elders of both Walpole, MA and Plainville, MA through their councils on aging, and to many members of the United States Armed Forces. In his leisure, Attorney Fennessy takes pleasure in spending time with his two daughters and their two Pomeranians.

Alexis Fox

Alexis Fox is a third year law student at Lewis and Clark Law School. She is currently externing in the Government Affairs section of the Humane Society of the United States. In the spring and summer of 2008 Alexis worked as a law clerk for the Animal Legal Defense Fund. Alexis was co-director of SALDF in her second year of law school and clerked for the National Center for Animal Law during her first summer of law school.

Pamela Frasch

Ms. Frasch is Executive Director of the Center for Animal Law Studies (CALS) at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon. CALS is an academic Animal Law program with a focus on research, scholarship, and experiential education. CALS is dedicated to:

”¢ Training law students and lawyers for careers as leaders in Animal Law and public policy;
”¢ Conducting, supporting, and promoting rigorous, independent legal research that advances the field of Animal Law; and
”¢ Developing innovative recommendations and legal strategies relating to Animal Law within administrative, legislative, litigation and other settings.

Previously, Ms. Frasch was General Counsel for the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), a national non-profit animal protection law organization that seeks to protect the lives and advance the interests of animals through the legal system. In 1996, Ms. Frasch created the ALDF Criminal Justice Program which has since assisted law enforcement and animal advocates in investigating and prosecuting thousands of animal abuse and neglect cases nationwide.

In addition to her duties with CALS, Ms. Frasch is co-author of the premier American legal casebook in the field, Animal Law, Cases and Materials now in its third edition (Carolina Academic Press, 2006) and used in most animal law courses being taught in the United States. She is also co-author, with Professor Kathy Hessler, of the forthcoming Animal Law in a Nutshell (Thomson West, 2010). She has taught survey and advanced courses in animal law at Lewis & Clark Law School since 1998.

Ms. Frasch is a frequent speaker and guest lecturer on issues of animal law and is the principal author of Oregon’s first felony anti-cruelty law. She has authored or co-authored many articles and book chapters in the field, and has been recognized by the Humane Society of the United States and the Oregon Humane Society for her contributions.

Wayne Geiger

Wayne Geiger is the Founder and Director of the Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary which was formed in 2002 as a 501(c)(3) non-profit. The Sanctuary is Oregon’s premier farm animal sanctuary, but frequently assists all types of animals in need. The picture shows Wayne with a recently abandoned kitten found in the Chicken Barn(the kitten has a new home and is doing well.) After 5 years of renting property for animals of abuse and neglect, the Sanctuary recently purchased 54 acres in Scio/Stayton area. Since its inception, Wayne has been a primary humane investigator for such notable cases such as the Ark Animal Sanctuary in Tillamook and several cases throughout Oregon.

Most recently, the Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary has teamed up with “Farm Sanctuary” in receiving 10 young pigs from the Iowa floods. Locally, Wayne is involved with the Linn County Sheriff’s Dept. with a severe case of animal neglect involving three starving horses. A new challenge has been presented to the Sanctuary in the form of “foreclosure animals.” To meet this challenge, a new adoption center off site web link has been launched to help people find new, lifelong, permanent homes for their animals in need. Go to the Sanctuary’s website and click on “Adoption Center” for more information about the “farm animal match making service.”

The Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary mission is to rescue, rehabilitate and place abused and neglected farm animals. We work to educate the public in Farm Animal Welfare and advocate for public policy change. More about the Sanctuary is available on our website: www.lighthousefarmsanctuary.org.

Win Grant

Win Grant has been an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia for 28 years. He is currently the director of the district’s Monetary Penalties Unit which includes responsibility for all asset forfeiture matters. Win received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Richmond and a masters degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was a law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit before joining the United States Attorney’s Office. He lectures frequently on asset forfeiture and restitution issues to prosecutors, judges and law enforcement personnel in the United States and abroad. Win was the lead attorney for the government in the civil forfeiture case, United States v. Approximately 53 Pit Bulldogs (the Bad Newz Kennels case) and handled the restitution aspects of the criminal case, United States v. Michael Vick, et al.

Scott Heiser

Scott has been a prosecutor for seventeen years, serving the last eight years as the elected district attorney in Benton County, Oregon. While Scott has prosecuted all types of criminal conduct including capital murder, he has always found animal cruelty cases among the most compelling cases he has handled. His passion for holding animal abusers accountable for their crimes lead Scott to join the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), serving as the Senior Staff Attorney in ALDF’s Criminal Justice Program. Scott received his JD, with honors, from Northwestern School of Law of Lewis and Clark College and his undergraduate degree in Economics from Oregon State University. In 2006, Scott served as the President of the Oregon District Attorneys Association and as member of the Governor’s Drug and Violent Crime Advisory Committee. Scott has been a regular instructor at trainings hosted by the Oregon Department of Justice and he has served on the Board of Directors of his local humane society animal shelter, helping to fund the construction of a new shelter. In 2007, Scott had the honor of lecturing at Harvard Law School as part of ALDF’s Future of Animal Law Conference; Scott guest teaches animal law at Boalt Hall and Lewis and Clark Law School.

Kathy Hessler

Katherine Hessler received her LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center and graduated with a J.D. from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William and Mary in 1987. She also holds a B.A. from George Washington University from 1985. Professor Hessler has taught in Civil, Family, Mediation, Housing, Consumer, Social Security, and Community Development Clinics. She has also taught Animal Law, Mediation, and Focused Problem Solving.

Professor Hessler joins the Lewis and Clark faculty after teaching in the legal clinics at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, Cornell Law School, the University of Dayton, and Capital University. She is Co-Chair of the AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education, an Executive Board Member of the Balance in Legal Education Section and on the board for the pending Animal Law Section. She has served as a consultant to the Ohio Legal Assistance Foundation, and is active in movements relating to clinical legal education, appropriate dispute resolution, peace and nonviolence, and animal rights. Professor Hessler also taught as a fellow at the Center for Applied Legal Studies at the Georgetown University Law Center, and taught classes on nonviolence at Georgetown and at the University of Maryland. Prior to beginning her academic career, she was a staff attorney at Legal Services of Northern Virginia.

Professor Hessler’s scholarly writing has focused on animal law, the suppression of free speech, clinical legal education, and mediation. Her speaking engagements have focused on clinical legal education, animal law, and the legal implications of protest. In addition, she has experience as a mediator and has taught a mediation practicum, a mediation clinic, and an alternative dispute resolution course. Professor Hessler is the Associate Director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Conflict and Dispute Resolution. She serves on the board of the Center for Teaching Peace and the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and is a founding board member of the Cleveland Summer Legal Academy.

Rebecca Huss

Rebecca Huss is a Professor of Law at Valparaiso University School of Law in Valparaiso, Indiana. She has a Master of Laws in International and Comparative Law from the University of Iowa School of Law and graduated magna cum laude from the University of Richmond School of Law. Professor Huss practiced in law firms on corporate matters, as well as in-house at in the animal health division of a pharmaceutical company prior to beginning her academic career.

Recent publications include: “Issues Relating to Companion Animals and Housing,” in Animal Law and the Courts: A Reader (Taimie L. Bryant, Rebecca J. Huss & David N. Cassuto eds., 2008); Rescue Me: Legislating Cooperation between Animal Control Authorities and Rescue Organizations; Valuation in Veterinary Malpractice; Separation, Custody, and Estate Planning Issues Relating to Companion Animals; and Valuing Man’s and Woman’s Best Friend: The Moral and Legal Status of Companion Animals. Her primary focus in research and writing is on the changing nature of the relationship
between humans and their companion animals and whether the law adequately reflects the importance of that relationship. In 2007 Professor Huss was appointed by the District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia as the guardian/special master in Civil Action No.:3:07CV397, United States v. Approximately 53 Pit Bull Dogs (the Bad Newz Kennels case).

Laura Ireland

Laura Ireland is a partner in the law firm of Gibbons & Ireland, LLP on Oregon’s Central Coast. She received her J.D. and certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law from Lewis & Clark Law School. As a student, she was Editor in Chief of the Animal Law Review and Director of the L&C SALDF. She was the Founder of the National Center for Animal Law at Lewis & Clark, and served as the Executive Director from 2001-2008. Through the Center, she organized the annual Animal Law Conference, established and organized the National Animal Advocacy Competitions held annually at Harvard Law School and George Washington University School of Law; was the founder, director, and clinical professor of the Animal Law Clinic; developed resources for animal law students, law school administrators, and attorneys; and, developed animal law curriculum including Lewis & Clark’s summer Animal Law Program and Animal Law Specialization within the Environmental Law Program. Laura is the Founder and Chair of the recently formed Animal Law Section of the Oregon State Bar. She lives in Newport, Oregon with her husband, daughter, and rescued furkids.

Jay Johnson-Castro, Sr.

Born in Portland, Oregon and raised in the Alaskan wilderness, Jay Johnson-Castro, Sr.is a United States Navy veteran who is tri-lingual in English, Spanish, and Albanian. He served as an officer and/or director on numerous local, state, national, and international organizations, boards and committees, including: Tourism Advisory Committee, Officer of the Governor, Texas Historical Foundation, Texas Hotel & Lodging Association, Los Caminos del Rio, and Val Verde County Historical Commission, to name a few.

Residing on the border in Del Rio, Texas, Jay has been recognized for historic restoration and promoting heritage tourism all along the Texas-Mexico border. Since 2005, he has submitting the Rio Grande as an endangered river, filed suit against the Federal Government to protect endangered species in the Rio Grande region, and has championed the ecology and environment of the Rio Grande Corridor.

Jay has most recently become recognized internationally as a human rights activist for his hundreds of miles of protest walks against the border wall and the “for profit” prison camps of thousands of immigrant refugees, in particular the T. Don Hutto prison camp where hundreds of children are imprisoned for profit. He is the founding member of Border Ambassadors, a US-Mexico border network.

The father of four grown children and the grandfather of seven, Jay is also a sculptor, writer, photographer, pubic speaker and gourmet cook. In addition, he is an independent columnist for Inside the Checkpoints.

Janis Searles Jones

Janis Searles Jones is a lawyer and activist with broad experience in ocean conservation, public lands, fisheries, and other environmental issues. Currently Vice President for Legal Affairs for the Ocean Conservancy, she formerly acted as Senior Regional Counsel and Policy Advisor for the Pacific Regional Office of Oceana, covering marine issues from Alaska to California. Prior to Oceana, she worked as a staff attorney for the Alaska office of Earthjustice where her docket was dominated by marine issues.

Dan Kinburn

Dan Kinburn is General Counsel, Lead Trial Counsel, and Director of Advocacy Litigation at PCRM. He led two class-action lawsuits against the dairy industry, as well as a suit related to animal testing against the drug company Merck. Mr. Kinburn has also been involved in several lawsuits against the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s programs, which kill tens of thousands of animals each year in cruel experiments. He is also a member of the New York and New Jersey Bars.

Daniel Krewski

Dr. Krewski is currently Scientific Director of the R. Samuel McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment at the University of Ottawa. He holds academic appointments in the Department Epidemiology and Community Medicine and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Ottawa. Prior to joining the University of Ottawa in 1998, Dr. Krewski was Director, Risk Management in the Health Protection Branch of Health Canada. His professional interests include epidemiology, biostatistics, risk assessment, and risk management.

Dr. Krewski is a Fellow of both the Society for Risk Analysis and the American Statistical Association. He is National Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and recently chaired the Academy’s Committee on Toxicity Testing and Assessment of Environmental Agents.

Matthew Liebman

Matthew Liebman is a staff attorney at the Animal Legal Defense Fund, where he works in the civil litigation program. Prior to coming to ALDF, Matthew clerked for the Honorable Warren J. Ferguson of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Matthew graduated with distinction from Stanford Law School in 2006, where he co-founded a chapter of the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund and helped lead a campaign against campus vivisection. Matthew was actively involved in the National Lawyers Guild, the Critical Legal Theory Reading Group, and the Environmental Law Society. Matthew’s writing has appeared in the Journal of Animal Law, the Stanford Environmental Law Journal, the Animal Legal & Historical Web Center, and the Stanford Daily.

Paul Littlefair

Paul Littlefair is a graduate in Modern Chinese Studies (Leeds, 1984). He lived and worked in China and Japan for seven years before joining the RSPCA in 1998. He is currently Senior Manager, International Programmes, overseeing country strategies for all countries where RSPCA International is active (20+ countries in Europe and Asia). The RSPCA’s programmes include grant aid, in-country training courses, conferences and workshops, and an emergency response capacity. Paul has special responsibility for promoting animal welfare in China, Taiwan and Korea.

The RSPCA’s 330 uniformed inspectors enforce animal protection legislation in England and Wales. In the past decade the Society has also delivered law enforcement training to its counterpart inspectorates in a dozen countries. It has also played a significant advisory role in the formulation of draft animal protection legislation in countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere. In April 2008 in Beijing the RSPCA co-hosted a groundbreaking conference with China’s Institute of Law entitled ”˜International Forum on Animal Protection Law in China’, for the first time bringing together Western and Chinese animal law academics to discuss the challenges in drafting the country’s first general anti-cruelty law.

Paul Locke

Paul Locke, an environmental health scientist and attorney, is an Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Division of Toxicology. He holds an MPH from Yale University School of Medicine, a DrPH from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a JD degree from Vanderbilt University School of Law. Prior to joining the Department of Environmental Health, he was the Deputy Director of the Pew Environmental Health Commission. Among other things, the Commission spearheaded efforts to establish a nationwide health tracking system at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Locke’s research and practice focus on how decision makers use environmental health science and toxicology in regulation and policy-making and how environmental health sciences influence the policy-making process. His areas of study include radiation protection and alternatives to animal testing in biomedical research, with particular emphasis on regulatory toxicology. He is an expert in the growing field of humane sciences law and policy, an interdisciplinary area of research focusing on how policy and legal institutions influence the development implementation, use, validation and regulatory acceptance of alternatives to animals in biomedical research. More particularly, Dr. Locke is studying what policy and legal changes (if any) will be necessary to implement the National Academy of Sciences recent report Toxicity Testing in the 21st Century: A Vision and A Strategy.

Dr. Locke is co-director of the Johns Hopkins certificate program in Humane Science and Toxicology and a member of the faculty of Hopkins’ Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing. He co-teaches a course on animals in research that focuses on alternatives. Dr. Locke is a member of the DC Bar’s Animal Law Committee and the editorial board of Risk Analysis: An International Journal. He has served on five National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council expert committees, including the Committee to Update the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Dr. Locke is admitted to practice law before the bars of the states of New York and New Jersey, the District of Columbia, and the United States Supreme Court.

Kim McCoy

Kim is a passionate animal and environmental advocate with a B.S. in Business Administration and a J.D. specializing in Animal Law. During law school, she served as Editor in Chief of Lewis & Clark’s Animal Law Review and interned with the National Center for Animal Law. In 2006, Kim founded the MENSA Animal Law Special Interest Group. An official member of HSUS’s National Disaster Animal Response Team, she assisted with animal rescue in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Her article, Subverting Justice: An Indictment of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, appears in Volume 14:1 of the Animal Law Review. As International Executive Director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Kim is deeply committed to the defense and conservation of marine animals worldwide. She believes firmly in the merits of aggressive, nonviolent direct action as an effective and necessary means of upholding international wildlife conservation law.

Russ Mead

Russ Mead is General Counsel for Best Friends Animal Society, the nation’s largest no-kill animal sanctuary for companion animals. Russ co-author an amicus brief in the Michael Vick case where he argued that dogs are the victims of dog fighting. This case could well expand animal rights by giving dogs the same status as human victims. Mr. Mead has lobbied state legislatures for felony animal cruelty laws, anti-tethering laws, orders of protection for pets in domestic disputes, and emergency pet evacuation bills. He and the Best Friends team successfully convinced Cedar City, Utah to vote down a proposed pit bull ban and adopt a model ordinance to help reduce numbers of aggressive dogs that end up in shelters. He also convinced the city attorney’s office in Coeur d’Alene, ID to avoid a pit bull ban. Russ is a hands-on rescuer who was on the ground in Katrina and worked on the nation’s largest hoarding rescue of 1,400 animals. He has recently been working on the prosecution of a hoarder in a Best Friends rescue of over 800 cats. He is frequently interviewed by television, radio and print media on animal welfare issues.

Stephan Otto

Stephan K. Otto is an attorney and the director of legislative affairs for the Animal Legal Defense Fund. In this capacity, he oversees the development of animal protection laws at the local, state and federal levels. Mr. Otto is the author of various animal protection bills, statutes and ordinances, including a first-in-the-nation law which statutorily recognizes the connection between those who are violent toward animals and those who are violent toward humans. His articles on animal protection laws have been published in the Animal Law Review; he is the editor and publisher of the 2,800+ page animal laws compendium, Animal Protection Laws of the United States of America & Canada, Model Animal Protection Laws collection, and State & Provincial Rankings Reports; and he speaks on a variety of animal-related issues at hearings and presentations across the country. Mr. Otto lives in Portland, Oregon, and is a member of the Oregon and Washington Bars.

Nicole Pallotta

Nicole Pallotta is the Student Liaison for ALDF’s Animal Law Program. In this capacity, she works with the law student members who are interested in protecting the lives and advancing interests of animals through the legal system. Nicole also works with over 120 Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF) chapters, which are ALDF-affiliated law student groups that work to promote animal law within their communities. Nicole helps law students form and maintain chapters, and assists them with projects like getting animal law courses added to the curriculum at their schools. She also coordinates ALDF’s animal law clerkship, scholarship, and chapter project grant programs. Nicole holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Georgia, where she taught the first undergraduate course in Animals and Society and studied the animal protection movement. In addition to her academic work, Nicole has been involved with numerous animal protection and rescue groups over the years. She lives in Sonoma County, Calif., with her best friend, Alec, a rescued German shepherd.

Jami Pannell

Jami Pannell is a clinical professor and staff attorney at the Animal Law Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School. She received her J.D. and certificate in Advocacy and Dispute Resolution from Chapman University School of Law. As a student, Jami received several awards and scholarships, including CALI awards for Legal Drafting and Trial Practice, the “World Savior Award” from the student body (most likely to change the world with a law degree) and the Marjorie W. Day California ABOTA scholarship for outstanding advocacy. Her team placed second in the 2005 National Animal Advocacy Moot Court competition. While at Chapman, Jami founded a SALDF chapter that became the most active student group on campus. She also established Chapman’s first animal law class.

As an attorney, Jami strongly advocates for her clients in court. A recent victory of note is Jami’s successful anti-SLAPP motion on behalf of her activist client who was sued by Schumacher Furs in federal court. Jami also co-organizes the National Animal Advocacy Competitions at Harvard and GWU, and serves as a closing argument judge. She is the Treasurer of the newly-formed Oregon State Bar Animal Law Section, and also serves as its Public Outreach Chair. Jami is a frequent public speaker on a variety of animal law topics.

Jami joined the Animal Law Clinic in 2007. Under her direction, students in the clinic develop their litigation, negotiation, drafting, and advocacy skills. Students support animal law attorneys and animal advocacy organizations nationwide to advance protections for companion animals, wildlife, and animals used for research, entertainment, and food and food production through litigation, regulations, and legislation. The Animal Law Clinic also provides legal services for individuals and organizations throughout Oregon. Typical cases include veterinary malpractice, wrongful death or injury of companion animals, civil animal activist defense, landlord tenant disputes over animal restrictions, administrative hearings and appeals before dog control boards, animal custody disputes, advancing protections for farmed animals, and constitutional issues arising from wrongful animal seizures. Lewis and Clark’s Animal Law Clinic is the only one of its kind in the nation.

Nancy Perry

Nancy Perry is Vice President of Government Affairs for The Humane Society of
the United States. Ms. Perry oversees legislative campaigns to protect animals, including statewide initiatives and grassroots organization throughout the country. She has spearheaded Congressional work to end horse slaughter, crack down on puppy mills, and protect Yellowstone bison. A graduate of Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College, she founded the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund, the Animal Law Journal, and the Animal Law conference. Perry co-teaches the Animal Law Seminar at George Washington University and George Mason law schools, and a summer intensive workshop at Lewis & Clark Law School.

Mike Radford

Mike Radford OBE is based in the Law School at Aberdeen University, Scotland, UK. In 1992, he established the first animal welfare law course to be offered by a university in the UK (and possibly Europe). He is presently a trustee and member of the governing councils of three leading charities in the UK: the PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals), Dogs Trust, and the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare. He is also a member of the Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law Board of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and WSPA’s Scientific Advisory Panel. Mike has worked extensively with politicians, public officials, and NGOs on the development and implementation of legislation. At the beginning of 2008 he was appointed OBE by HM The Queen in recognition of his services to animal welfare law.

Adam Roberts

Adam M. Roberts is a Senior Vice President of Born Free USA, based in Washington, DC. He helped found the organization in 2002 to bring the UK-based Born Free Foundation’s message of compassionate conservation to the American public. He began his animal protection and conservation career in Washington in 1991 after graduating Vassar College. Adam has significant expertise in international wildlife trade and issues surrounding the keeping of wild animals in captivity. In addition to directing the Born Free USA DC office and international programs, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Species Survival Network (SSN), a global coalition working on wildlife trade under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. He chairs the SSN Press Committee, Financial Committee, Bear Working Group, and Animals in Captivity Working Group. Adam is also a Member of the Board of Humane USA, a political action committee that works to raise funds for candidates for public office who have strong positions in favor of animal protection. Most recently, he was part of a small group of animal advocates who launched a new organization, the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries, to develop standards for the care of animals in sanctuaries and accredit those facilities meeting the organization’s guidelines. In 2003, Adam founded The $10 Club, a charity to fund poverty alleviation projects in developing countries. He runs the organization single-handedly, and as a volunteer. To date, the organization has supported work in more than 50 countries. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Stephanie, daughters Bella (13) and Mia (4), two dogs, three cats, and two very pampered guinea pigs.

Bonnie Robson

Bonnie Robson is PETA’s Deputy General Counsel, responsible for PETA’s offensive and defensive litigation, undercover investigations, and administrative law practice. She is admitted in California, Virginia, and Alaska. Before joining PETA in 2006, Bonnie spent more than 20 years on commercial law and litigation as an assistant attorney general, partner in private practice, deputy director of Alaska’s division of oil and gas, and consultant to Alaska’s legislature for one of the largest construction projects in North America. She has successfully litigated cased in trials of up to six months duration against some of the largest companies in the world.

Liz Clancy Ross

With more than two decades in the animal protection world, Ross currently serves as federal policy advisor to the Animal Welfare Institute in Washington, D.C. where she works with federal legislators on a number of animal protection issues. With a specialty in equine protection she has been deeply involved in the campaign to end the slaughter of horses for human consumption since its inception, and is a founding member of The Homes for Horses Coalition. She has been involved in a number of primate protection issues including a campaign to end the trade in wild-caught primates for research in the European Union. Ross also played an instrumental role in the foundation of Save The Chimps and assisted with a lawsuit brought against the Air Force which resulted in the release of 21 Air Force chimpanzees to the Florida sanctuary.

Suzanne Roy

After an early career in politics as deputy press secretary for the Lt. Governor of New York and New Hampshire Press Secretary for Gary Hart’s 1988 presidential campaign, Suzanne Roy joined the animal advocacy movement. For the past 19 years, she has worked to help animals, first as the Communications Director for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and then as Program Director for In Defense of Animals (IDA) since 1991. She has led successful campaigns to end military experiments on dogs and cats and monkey crack-smoking experiments at New York University. Suzanne also collaborated on the ten-year effort that forced closure of the world’s largest chimpanzee testing laboratory, The Coulston Foundation. For the past five years, Suzanne has worked as part of IDA’s elephant team, which focuses primarily on the plight of elephants in zoos. Since IDA began its captive elephant welfare program, twelve zoos have closed or plan to phase out their elephant exhibits and seven elephants have been sent from zoos to sanctuaries.

Lei’ohu Ryder

Lei’ohu Ryder is a Native of Hawai’i, a keeper of the ancient wisdom and protocols, a gifted teacher, singer, songwriter and a powerful advocate for the indigenous peoples of the planet as well as a powerful role model to our next generation. She weaves the wisdom of the Pacific in channeling the voices of the wind, rain, sea and sky.

As kahu/priestess of Kukuipuka Heiau, an ancient temple of healing on the island of Maui, the wisdom of the breath of aloha and the spirit of ohana/family is shared through prayer, protocols, chants, music and activities that connect the heart with the universe.

From 2002-2006, Peter was the Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of the Animal Rights Legal Advocacy Network (ARLAN), a New Zealand group of lawyers and law students working on animal welfare issues, and also the editor of the ARLAN Report, a short e-journal discussing topics relating to animals and the law. In 2007, Peter won a $15000 grant from Voiceless, the fund for animals (with Steven White of Griffith Law School) to produce a workshop entitled Animal Law in Australasia: A New Dialogue. From this workshop will emerge the first book on animal law ever written in the Southern Hemisphere, expected in late 2008. To learn more about this and other aspects of Peter’s work, visit: www.lawstaff.auckland.ac.nz/~sankoff.

Joan Schaffner

Joan E. Schaffner is an Associate Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School. She received her B.S. in mechanical engineering and J.D. from the University of Southern California and her M.S. in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She worked at the law firm of Irell & Manella in Los Angeles California and clerked for the Honorable Marianna Pfaelzer in the Central District of California before coming to GW.

Professor Schaffner teaches Civil Procedure, Remedies, Sexuality and the Law, and Animal Law Lawyering and writes in these areas as well. She is the faculty advisor to Lambda Law, the GLBT student organization at GW, and is faculty advisor and editor-in-chief of the American Intellectual Property Law Association Quarterly Journal.

Professor Schaffner directs the GW Animal Law Program which consists of the GW Animal Welfare Project (AWP), a pro bono effort of faculty and students devoted to researching and improving animal welfare laws in the District of Columbia; the Animal Law Litigation Project, a partnership with the Humane Society of the United States, designed to provide clinical litigation opportunities to GW law students on HSUS projects; seminars in animal law; and a student chapter of the Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF). Professor Schaffner co-directs the Animal Welfare Project, supervises and teaches within the Litigation Project and is the faculty advisor to SALDF. Additionally, Professor Schaffner has testified on behalf of non-breed-specific dangerous dog laws and has presented on animal law panels at conferences world-wide. She is active in various organizations including: Chair-Elect (8/08), Publications Chair, and Editor of the newsletter of the ABA TIPS Animal Law Committee, Founding Chair of the AALS Section on Animal Law, consumer member for the District of Columbia Board of Veterinary Medicine, and recently selected as a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics.

Zak Smith

Zak Smith is an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Mr. Smith works on the Marine Mammal Protection Project in NRDC’s Los Angeles office, which aims to protect marine mammals and their environment through the full spectrum of advocacy approaches: major impact litigation, legislation, and policy analysis.

After graduating from U.C. Berkeley, Mr. Smith obtained a Masters Degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and worked on international trade issues at the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. Returning to his native California, Mr. Smith graduated from UCLA School of Law and then practiced at Bingham McCutchen prior to joining NRDC in September, 2007 where he has worked since.

Charlie Tebbutt

Charlie Tebbutt has been an attorney with the Northwest office of the Western Environmental Law Center (WELC) for 14 years. Charlie has been among the most active citizen enforcement attorneys in the United States, having been involved in scores of enforcement actions against polluters in more than fifteen states using primarily the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Charlie has successfully prosecuted CAFO Clean Water Act and EPCRA cases in Washington and Idaho, including CARE v. Henry Bosma Dairy, 305 F.3d 943 (9th Cir. 2002). He has cases pending against industrial dairies under the CAA and a challenge to Washington’s general CAFO permit for failure to require groundwater monitoring.

Joyce Tischler

As one of the co-founders of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, almost thirty years ago, California attorney Joyce Tischler has helped shape the emerging field of animal law. Joyce handled some of Animal Legal Defense Fund’s earliest cases, including a 1981 lawsuit that halted the U.S. Navy’s plan to kill 5,000 feral burros and a 1988 challenge to the U.S. Patent Office’s rule allowing the patenting of genetically altered animals. She has tackled such diverse topics as challenges to hunting and trapping using the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), enforcement of the federal Animal Welfare Act, standing to sue, animal custody battles, the right to kill animals pursuant to will provisions, landlord-tenant issues and damages and recovery for injury to or death of an animal. Joyce was the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s Executive Director for 25 years and now serves as the agency’s General Counsel, overseeing its civil Litigation Program.

Bruce Wagman

Bruce A. Wagman is a partner in the San Francisco office of Schiff Hardin, with an almost exclusive focus on a wide range of animal law cases, as well as education and consultation in the animal law field. He also serves as the Chief Outside Litigation Counsel for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, a national legal animal protection organization for which he helps devise and run a national litigation program. He has been practicing animal law since 1992 and has represented clients in state and federal courts.

Bruce’s clients include numerous animal protection organizations as well as private individuals. His cases cover national issues affecting animals in entertainment, biomedical research, animal cruelty, the farming industry, and wildlife, as well as more “local” cases involving injuries to, and caused by, animals. In 2005, he represented the Animal Legal Defense Fund in a civil animal cruelty case that resulted in the rescue of 350 dogs suffering in a breeding/hoarding situation; he has worked on numerous large hoarding cases as well. He is a coeditor of Animal Law, the first casebook for animal law courses, which was first published in January 2000; the third edition was published in August 2006 and the fourth edition is in process. He has taught Animal Law at Hastings College of the Law (San Francisco); Boalt Hall (Berkeley); Stanford Law School; and the University of San Francisco, School of Law. Bruce received a bachelor of science degree from Cornell University and a bachelor of science in nursing from Columbia University School of Nursing.

Bruce has worked on a number of matters involving nonhuman primates, including litigation and consultation with respect to a number of matters involving chimpanzees used in entertainment and research, and kept as pets or in sanctuaries. In 2005 and 2006, he worked with the legal team that ultimately rescued four chimpanzees from a “trainer” who beat and abused the chimpanzees in order to prepare them to appear in public, on television, and in films. He recently represented two sanctuaries in the successful battle to keep two chimpanzees and nine gibbons in their new, supportive homes. Bruce has also challenged the use of dolphins in a “Swim With the Dolphins” program, assisted in investigatory work involving exotic animals in several situations, and consulted on circus issues.

Paul Waldau

Paul Waldau is Director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, which includes a graduate program in human-animal studies that began in 1995. Paul has a Doctor of Philosophy degree from University of Oxford. He also has a Juris Doctor degree from UCLA Law School and a Master’s Degree from Stanford University in Religious Studies.

He is the author of The Specter of Speciesism: Buddhist and Christian Views of Animals published by Oxford University Press in 2001, co-editor of A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Reli